Due to investor demand, Organigram Holdings Inc. CEO Greg Engel decided to move the company’s exchange listing to the NASDAQ Marketplace. It is one of the few Canadian cannabis companies that the NASDAQ has allowed to list for trading. Engle and CFO Paolo De Luca spoke with Green Market Report on the day the company joined the NASDAQ.

Canadian-based Organigram Holdings Inc. (TSX VENTURE: OGI) (OTCQX: OGRMF) will begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on May 21, 2019. The company will continue to list its common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol “OGI.”

“As a management team we are seeing increased interest from investors in the U.S. and internationally and believe that having a listing on the NASDAQ will facilitate trading,” said Paolo De Luca, Chief Financial Officer of Organigram. “In addition, based on precedents in the cannabis space, we expect trading volumes to increase which should result in increased liquidity for all investors”.

The company has also hired Native Ads, Inc. to manage a digital media marketing campaign and entered into an agreement with Hybrid Financial Ltd. to provide marketing services to advisors, brokers and institutional investors in North America.

Organigram has developed a portfolio of legal adult use recreational cannabis brands including The Edison Cannabis Company, Ankr Organics, Trailer Park Buds and Trailblazer. Organigram’s primary facility is located in Moncton, New Brunswick and the Company is regulated by the Cannabis Act and the Cannabis Regulations (Canada).

Investment in Chocolate

Organigram also announced a $15 million investment commitment in a high-speed, high-capacity, fully-automated production line with the ability to produce an estimated 4 million kilograms of exceptional chocolate cannabis edibles per year. Organigram said it expects to take delivery of the line in the fall.

The company said that the line is expected to allow Organigram’s product development team to introduce chocolate innovations unique not only to the cannabis industry but to the chocolate industry as a whole.

“Over the last number of years, Organigram has become known for its best-in-class cannabis production facility and high-quality products,” says Greg Engel, CEO, Organigram. “With this investment, we will soon also be known for our world-class chocolate production capability.”

Organigram’s foray into chocolate is led by a product development and production team with more than 25 years of combined chocolate experience and expertise. As previous Vice President, Operations at Ganong Bros Limited, Jeff Purcell, Organigram’s Senior Vice President of Operations, will leverage his many years of chocolate experience to implement and manage the project. The company has also recruited a marketing, product development and a research team led by Ginette Ahier, previously of Adorable Chocolate, and Mouna Gharsallah, previously of Tunisia based Sotuchoc.

The full Organigram chocolate offering that is under development is expected to be supported by a carefully curated collection of partners and suppliers identified for their own global expertise and unwavering commitment to quality. The investment will contribute to a state-of-the-art chocolate molding line and a fully integrated packaging line, that includes advanced engineering, robotics, high-speed labeling, and automated shipping carton packing.

“Not only have we invested in exceptional technology, but we have also brought an outstanding team to the table,” says Engel. “I don’t believe there is another team assembled out there that can rival ours when it comes to understanding – and reimagining – the potential of chocolate cannabis-infused edibles.”

It’s time for your Daily Hit of cannabis financial news for April 18, 2019.

On The Site

Acreage Holdings

Acreage Holdings, Inc. (CSE: ACRG.U) (OTC: ACRGF) (FSE: 0ZV) announced that on April 17, its subsidiary, High Street Capital Partners agreed to acquire Nevada-based Deep Roots Medical in a deal valued at $120 million. The cash and stock transaction will mark Acreage’s entry into the Nevada market. This deal plants another flag in Acreage’s growing empire bringing the footprint up to 20 (including pending acquisitions) making it the largest company in the US cannabis industry.

Greenlane Holdings

The NASDAQ Markets Group (NDAQ) has been notoriously reluctant to list any cannabis related companies, even if they are only ancillary and not plant-touching. It seems vape distributor Greenlane Holdings Inc. has broken through the company’s barriers. Greenlane will begin trading on NASDAQ today with the ticker GNLN after upsizing its initial public offering of six million shares with the offering price of $17. The company had expected to price the shares between $14-$16.

In Other News

Aphria

Aphria Inc. (NYSE: APHA) announced the pricing of US$300 million aggregate principal amount of 5.25% convertible senior notes due in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers. Initial purchasers of the note will have the option to purchase an additional $50 million of notes. The sale of the notes to initial purchasers is expected to close on April 23, 2019. The company intends to use the proceeds of the offering for general corporate purposes, expansion initiatives, and future acquisitions.

Aurora Cannabis

Aurora Cannabis Inc. (NYSE: ACB) announced that the company’s contract with the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices has been approved. Now that the contract has been approved, Aurora will start construction on an indoor cannabis production facility in Leuna, Germany in May of this year. The facility is expected to be completed within a year of breaking ground, and Aurora believes that the facility’s first harvest will be completed by October 2020. At minimum, the facility should produce approximately 4,000 kilograms of cannabis over a four-year period.

Greenlane will begin trading on NASDAQ today with the ticker GNLN after upsizing its initial public offering of six million shares with the offering price of $17. The company had expected to price the shares between $14-$16.

According to the company, Greenlane is offering 5,250,000 shares and the selling stockholders are offering 750,000 shares. In addition, the selling stockholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 900,000 shares of Class A common stock. The offering is expected to close on April 23, 2019, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Greenlane Revenue

Greenlane recorded net sales of $178 million in 2018 and a 102% increase over the $88 million in 2017. The cost of sales in 2018 was $143 million. Still, the company reported a net loss of $6.4 million in 2018.

A significant percentage of the company’s revenue is dependent on sales that it purchases from a small number of key suppliers, including PAX Labs and JUUL Labs. For example, products manufactured by PAX Labs represented approximately 15.6% and 29.4% of Greenlane’s net sales in 2018 and 2017, respectively, and products manufactured by JUUL Labs represented approximately 36.5% and 11.4% of its net sales 2018 and 2017, respectively.

Greenlane shipped over 16.0million product units to its B2B customers in 2018 compared to over 2.0million product units to its B2B customers in the fiscal year 2016, representing a growth rate of approximately 687.3%. The company grew its employee headcount from 89 employees as of January1, 2016, to 256 employees as of December31, 2018.

Greenlane Chain

Greenlane’s customers include over 6,600 independent smoke shops and regional retail chain stores, which collectively operate approximately 9,700 retail locations, and hundreds of licensed cannabis cultivators, processors and dispensaries. Greenlane also owns and operates two of the most visited North American direct-to-consumer e-commerce websites in the vaporization products and consumption accessories industry, VaporNation.com and VapeWorld.com, which offer convenient, flexible shopping solutions directly to consumers. Greenlane is developing a unique e-commerce platform, Vapor.com, into which its existing e-commerce websites will be consolidated.

Today, Cronos Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CRON) announced that it had received a CAD $2.4 billion investment from Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO), the owner of Marlboro cigarette marker Phillip Morris USA.

The investment comes a little more than a year after Corona beer distributor Constellation Brands announced that it would invest billions of dollars in Canopy Growth Corporation (NYSE: CGC). For some, the investments from both Constellation and Altria represent the maturation of the cannabis industry and a sign that cannabis has truly gone mainstream.

For others, however, the investments mark the beginning of the end for the independent cannabis industry as Big Tobacco and Alcohol, which have fought against cannabis legalization for decades, start to take over the market.

The private placement investment will give Altria a 45% stake in Cronos Group. Altria will receive 146.2 million Shares of Cronos at closing at a price of CAD $16.25 per Share, representing a 41.5% premium to the 10-day VWAP of the Shares on the TSX on November 30, 2018. In addition, Altria will receive purchase share warrants, valued at CAD $1.4 billion, which if exercised would give the company an additional 10% in Cronos.

“Investing in Cronos Group as our exclusive partner in the emerging global cannabis category represents an exciting new growth opportunity for Altria,” said Howard Willard, Chairman and CEO of Altria. “We believe that Cronos Group’s excellent management team has built capabilities necessary to compete globally, and we look forward to helping Cronos Group realize its significant growth potential.”

Under the agreement, Altria will have the right to name four directors to Cronos Group’s board of directors, which includes one independent director, and the board will be expanded from five directors to seven. Altria will make Cronos its exclusive partner for all world-wide cannabis-related investments, with some limited exceptions.

News of the deal has caused to Cronos’ stock price to jump by nearly 25% in pre-market trading. Altria’s stock price rose by nearly 2% in pre-market trading. As of publication, Cronos is trading at or around USD $13.00 per share, and Altria is trading at or around USD $55.43.

Pending regulatory approval, the deal is expected to close within the first half of 2019. Earlier this morning, Cronos held a conference call discussing today’s announcement, and a recording of the call has been made available at https://thecronosgroup.com/investor-relations.

It’s time for your Daily Hit of cannabis financial news for December 3, 2018

On the Site

Cresco Labs

Chicago-based Cresco Labs is set to begin trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange on Monday using the symbol CL. Cresco is headed by Chief Executive Officer Charles Bachtell who was also a founding member of the Illinois Cannabis Bar Association and the Medical Cannabis Alliance of Illinois. Cresco hits the market with operations in six states (Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, California, and Arizona). The company focuses on entering markets with outsized demand potential, significant supply constraints and high barriers to entry.

Meet The Owner Of A Humboldt County Organic Farm

Green Market Report recently visited Humboldt County and during our time out there, we met Dave Sandomeno. He’s the owner/farmer of Sunrise Mountain Farm. Along with his wife Lorelle, they run an organic cannabis farm that supplies product to leading companies like Papa & Barkley. Check out the 8-foot tall cannabis plants!

In Other News

Cronos Group

The cannabis industry was abuzz with news this morning as news broke that the maker of Marlboro Cigarettes, Altria Group, (NYSE: MO) was in talks to acquire the Canadian Licensed Producer Cronos Group (NASDAQ: CRON). News of the talks caused Cronos’ stock price to jump roughly 10% from $9.25 at the start of trading to $10.17 at the close of the market. At present, details of the deal at not forthcoming and there is no certainty that Cronos will even agree to a deal. The talks are expected to last for several weeks.

Aphria

Aphria Inc. (NYSE: APHA) took a major hit today as stock prices for the company plummeted in the wake of a report where shorth seller Gabriel Grego called the company worthless. Grego, who is the founder of Quintessential Capital Management, worked with Hindenburg Research, a forensic analysis firm. In the report, Grego wrote that the company had redirect company funds towards investments held by company insiders. Both Grego and Hindenburg Research are shorting Aphria. In response, Aphria issued a statement calling the report “malicious and self-serving,” and told investors to “exercise caution in relying on the misrepresentations and distortions contained in the report and recognize that, by their own admission, Hindenburg Research “…stands to realize significant gains in the event that the price of any stock covered herein declines.””

OG DNA Genetics

The cannabis brand OG DNA Genetics announced today that it has successfully closed its first two equity financings, raising $35 million from a group of institutional and strategic investors. Serving as the placement agent for the financings was KES 7 Capital Inc. The company intends to use the proceeds to manufacture, distribute, and sell a variety of cannabis products under the DNA brand label. “I’m excited with our ability to now bridge the gap between real financial markets and real cannabis companies,” said Don Morris, co-founder of DNA. “We have a strong network of great operators and brands across many verticals and applications in the cannabis space, which combined with this capital raise enables us to further develop and refine them, while always staying true to our core strengths, which have positioned us extremely well for our next phase of growth.”

Canadian cannabis company Aleafia Health Inc. (ALEAF) has submitted an application to list its shares on the NASDAQ (NDAQ) exchange. The stock is currently trading in the OTC Markets Group in the U.S. and the Toronto Venture Exchange in Canada.

“Listing on the NASDAQ is another step as we continue to execute on our stated goal of attaining a global leadership position in the cannabis space,” said Aleafia Chairman Julian Fantino.

The company said it also intends to submit a Form 40-F, which is a requirement for Canadian companies to register securities it intends to offer on U.S. markets, to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) later this week. The listing remains subject to NASDAQ and SEC approval.

Until that is approved, the shares will continue to trade on the OTCQB under the ticker symbol “ALEAF”. Aleafia’s common shares will also continue to trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol “ALEF” post-NASDAQ up-listing.

Aleafia is hoping to join other Canadian cannabis companies that have found a home at the NASDAQ. Those include biotech company GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH), Insys Therapeutics (INSY), Cronos Group (CRON) and Tilray (TLRY). High Times Holding Co. has also applied but hasn’t found the exchange to be as welcoming as some of these other cannabis-related companies.

Part 2 of 8 of the Cannabis Trends for 2018: U.S. companies run north of the border and IPOs are on the rise.

Over the next year expect an increase of cannabis companies to start going public in Canada instead of the United States. Although the U.S. market has great potential in the long run, there are a lot of short term advantages to going public in Canada.

The first, and most obvious reason, is that Canada has legalized recreational cannabis sales.

Sure, nine states have legalized recreational cannabis, but it’s still federally illegal. US cannabis companies continuously have to look over their shoulders, hoping that the federal government isn’t about to kick down their door and make their business close its doors for good. Not to mention the fact that the entire U.S. market still operates as cash-only, with extremely limited access to banking services.

Put yourself in the position of a cannabis business owner: Would you rather operate in a market that has the *potential* of being more profitable but has no access to banking services and puts you at risk of being arrested? Or would you want to operate in a market that carries little legal risk and you can actually open a bank account? For many entrepreneurs, it’s a pretty simply choice.

One company that is not afraid to do business in both the United States and Canada is Sunniva. Headquartered in Calgary, Canada, Sunniva is on the fast track to becoming one of the first cannabis companies to be licensed in both Canada and California, which is one of the world’s largest cannabis markets.

Legality aside, there’s also the issue listing requirements in the U.S. Companies have to be meet very strict requirements in order to become listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or NASDAQ. For example, in order to become listed on the NYSE you need to have publicly held securities that are valued at a minimum of $100 million. Likewise, companies hoping to go on NASDAQ need a pre-tax income of $11 million for an aggregate of three years.

Contrast that with the Canadian exchanges, where companies on the TSX only need a pre-tax income from the previous year totaling $300,000. Those are not the only requirements, of course, but from there you can get a pretty clear idea of how difficult it is to make it on the NYSE or NASDAQ compared to the CSE or TSX.

The vast majority of “cannabis companies” listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ are biopharmaceutical companies, like GW Pharmaceuticals, that aren’t primarily cannabis companies. The only two companies that are purely cannabis companies that are publicly listed in the United States is Cronos Group and Canopy Growth.

With fewer barriers and fewer risks, numerous companies that previously started as U.S. based companies have begun moving operations north of the border and are making preparations to go public. Some of those companies include Acreage Holdings, Dixie Brands Inc., and MJIC Inc.

In the short term, expect an exodus of cannabis companies either going public or completely moving their operations to Canada and expect them to stay there until the United States finally decides to tackle federal cannabis reform.

Canadian-based cannabis company Cronos Group announced that it expects that its common shares will begin trading on Nasdaq on February 27, 2018, under the trading ticker symbol “CRON.” Cronos Group will retain its listing on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol “MJN.”

“This uplisting to NASDAQ is a major corporate milestone and reflects the significant progress we have made in strengthening our corporate governance and expanding our global footprint,” said Mike Gorenstein, CEO of Cronos Group. “We believe this will increase long-term shareholder value by improving awareness, liquidity, and appeal to institutional investors.”

While High Times Media (formerly Origo)has been fighting to remain listed at the exchange, Nasdaq has continued to reject the company only to face appeals by High Times to remain. Nasdaq attempted to delist Origo in February of 2017 for not meeting the listing requirements of 300 shareholders. Origo submitted a plan to accomplish this in April of 2017 and Nasdaq granted an extension. In October 2017, Nasdaq agreed to allow Origo to continue listing the shares on Nasdaq through February 2018 in order to complete the merger. Then last month, Nasdaq said that Origo’s failure to hold an annual meeting for the fiscal year ending November 30, 2016, served as an additional reason to delist the shares. Once again, Origo responded and for now, Nasdaq has agreed to let the shares remain at least until the February date or upon review following the merger, whichever comes first.

Cronos Group operates two wholly-owned Canadian Licensed Producers regulated under Health Canada’s Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations: Peace Naturals Project Inc. ( Ontario ), which was the first non-incumbent medical cannabis license granted by Health Canada, and Original BC Ltd. ( British Columbia ), which is based in the Okanagan Valley. It has multiple international production and distribution platforms including Cronos Israel and Cronos Australia. Through an exclusive distribution agreement, Cronos Group has access to over 12,000 pharmacies in Germany.

The Green Market Report focuses on the financial news of the rapidly growing cannabis industry. Our target approach filters out the daily noise and does a deep dive into the financial, business and economic side of the cannabis industry. Our team is cultivating the industry’s critical news into one source and providing open source insights and data analysis